The @unions21 podcast is one year old! To celebrate, Becky Wright and me joined the TUC Congress in Manchester for our latest episode, to catch up with the newest General Secretary on- the-block Paddy Lillis of USDAW to find out how his union recruits NINETY THOUSAND members a year, and Antonia Bance who spells out the TUC’s major new WORKSMART initiative

Our chat with Paddy gave real grounds for optimism. It’s not just that USDAW churns each year more members than most unions have, but also that in a time of turmoil for the retail sector, they post persistently growing membership stats. Just how do you set yourself up to process that level of recruitment activity?

And, crucially, the demographic is young. That shouldn’t surprise anyone really given the retail sector is the refuge of first and student jobbers. But there are also over 700 young reps to go with several thousand new young members. Enough of the spoilers, you’ll have to listen to podcast to find out more.

It’s always a pleasure to talk to Antonia, and on the podcast you can hear the enthusiasm in her voice for the Worksmart programme she is leading on at Congress House. This is more than a rerun of previous youth engagement strategies. And with density rates amongst young people down well below 10%, it needs to be. The key to success here will be genuine collaboration between TUC affiliates themselves and with the TUC centrally. Never has it been truer that. divided we fall but united we may succeed! Listen in to find out more.

And last but not least we review our standing-room only fringe events, one on Digital Transformation, and the other focussing on Collective Voice. We’ll walk you through the issues associated with both compelling issues, with invaluable help in the form of voxpops from our stellar speakers including Rachel Reeves,Alison Charlton, Jenny Andrew, Jon SkewesAli Milani and Amy Leversidge.

You can access the all the Unions21 podcasts here. Enjoy, share, rate! Thanks!